Anaheim InnSider

DISNEY FIX: MICKEY’S SOUNDSATIONAL PARTY

Hello everyone! Just wanted to take a quick second to introduce myself. My name’s Tommy and I’ve been working at this hotel for several years now. I get the privilege to visit the parks once or twice a week, so I was asked to write about them so I can share a little bit of my experiences with you all. I hope you enjoy my first ( hopefully not my last) post!

I was lucky enough to be invited by a friend to an Annual Passholders party last Monday. The park closed at 8 PM to the general public so we had the parks to ourselves ’til midnight.

They had some items on the menu that were exclusive to this event. The one we got to try was a hot dog covered in mac and cheese topped with bacon bits. Yum! It was a good thing that we ate this early in the evening because we had the rest of the night to walk some of it off. I haven’t had this much fun in the parks in a long time! Wait times for rides that are normally over an hour were down to almost zero! Here’s a picture of the Space Mountain boarding area:

For some reason I felt a little queasy after the ride (maybe it was the hot dog), but there was nobody else waiting so the cast members asked us if we wanted to go again. That’s a rarity especially for a popular ride like this one, so we had to say yes! However, when they asked us if we wanted to ride through again for the THIRD time, I just had to refuse for fear of losing my dinner.

There was a special performance of Mickeys Soundsational Parade down Main Street that evening. Afterwards, the floats remained on Main Street so that we could take a closer look at the floats and interact with the characters. The floats had a lot of detail to them that I had not noticed before. The Imagineers did a great job, and its evident that they took a lot of time designing these floats.

However, the highlight of the night for me was meeting so many great people from MouseWait. I have had the privilege of being a part of this online community for several months now, and I have never met a more welcoming group of people. Maybe its because we all share this crazy love and obsession for all things Disney! Real quickly, MouseWait is a mobile application for iPhone and Android smartphone users that shows current wait times for rides at Disneyland and California Adventure. It also has a “Lounge” where users post live pictures, share breaking Disney news, and have meet-ups like the one we had last Monday. Here’s a video of the MouseWaiters taking over the Carousel:

Of the 50+ people that were there that night, we ended up riding Space Mountain, Alice in Wonderland, It’s a Small World, The Matterhorn and Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters as a huge group. There’s nothing like making that many new friends in a single night! Everyone, from the newest member to the most seasoned veteran was friendly and easy to talk to. We called it a night at around midnight, but I already can’t wait til the next time!